1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic editing apparatus and more particularly, it relates to an improved video tape editing apparatus which allows effective editing of homemade video tapes without the complication and expense of the usual professional editing equipment.
In recent years, there has been a great increase in the ownership of camcorders with a corresponding growth in the development of home video recording and editing. Frequently, the users of home video equipment will desire to edit their initial or so-called "master" home video tapes so as to eliminate, rearrange, or add scenes which will produce a more desirable video tape. For instance, many a home video recording enthusiast will generally want to, after having recorded the initial home video tape, edit out certain less important scenes or segments or other undesired portions such as commercial messages and the like. While professional editing equipment does exist for those in the television industry, such editing equipment has been traditionally unavailable to the home video recording enthusiast or has been relatively high in cost so as to be unaffordable.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A prior art search in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office directed to the subject matter of this application disclosed the following U.S. Pat. Nos., 4,283,735; 4,319,286; 4,618,895; 4,766,501; 4,786,981; and 4,858,027.
However, none of the prior art patents uncovered from the search disclosed a video tape editing apparatus like that of the present invention which includes a fade control circuit for producing clean, professional transitions at the edit-points. This is accomplished by simply depressing an auto-fade button so as to cause automatically video and audio fade out and fade in edits.